Consumer electronic appliances such as set top boxes for receiving and decoding cable and satellite signals, televisions, DVD players, game systems, etc. are well known in the art, as are the hand held controlling devices, for example remote controls, which may be provided for use in issuing commands to these appliances. Frequently, such controlling devices may be “universal,” that is, capable of issuing commands suitable for the control of more than one appliance of differing type and/or manufacture.
Increasingly, the interconnections between consumer appliances such as those mentioned above may take the form of digital interfaces based upon, for example, the High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) standard. The utilization of such digital interconnections may facilitate the exchange of identity information, commands, and capability data between devices and/or the discovery of system topology, which information may be advantageously used when configuring a controlling device.